The Detention Center
Wood County Jail
- Operated byWood County Sheriff's Office
- County publishes a jail nameYes - the page is headed 'County Jail' and the text uses both 'Wood County Sheriff Justice Center' and 'Wood County Jail'
- Jail address402 S. Stephens St., Quitman, Texas 75783
- Jail AdministratorCpt. Louis Dahlman; Asst. Jail Administrator Lt. Jeanie Hurst
- Staffing31 certified jailers: 1 jail administrator, 1 lieutenant, 7 sergeants, 22 officers
- Online jail searchhttps://portal-txwood.tylertech.cloud/PublicAccess/JailingSearch.aspx?ID=400
- Posting bondThe page explains cash bonds, surety bonds and fine payment, including the state fee of $15.00 on the first and second bond per jailing, maximum $30.00, with Class C bonds exempt
- VisitationFace-to-face on Tuesday and Sunday, two 20-minute visits per inmate per week; video visits scheduled at JailATM.com
- Inmate phone vendorICSolutions - the county posts a brochure PDF but no rates are stated on the page itself
- Commissary / depositsJailATM.com online or the jail lobby kiosk; commissary orders posted Wednesday mornings; no prices published
- Beds and population, 2026-08150 people held in 185 rated beds
Source: Wood County - County Jail · checked 2026-08-22
Transparency rating
5/10Partial- ✓The jail is named
- ✓Who is in custody
- ✓Beds and daily population
- ✓What it costs taxpayers
- ✗Deaths in custody — not published
- ✗PREA audits — not published
- ✗Independent inspection — not published
- ✗Who else it holds, and for how much — not published
- ✓How to post bond
- ✗Phone, video and commissary rates — not published
The Building
You paid for it. Here is what the record says it cost.
- Year built1988 - the county states 'The current building was constructed and completed in 1988'
- Original costNot found
- Paid for byNot found
- Beds185 capacity after the 2026 expansion (71 beds plus 7 separation cells at opening in 1988)
Since then
- 2001 expansion: capacity raised to 112 beds with 16 separation cells for males, and 25 beds with 4 separation cells for females
- 2026 expansion: 28 beds added, bringing jail capacity to 185
The Sheriff
Sheriff Kelly Cole
- OfficeWood County Sheriff's Office
- Physical address402 S. Stephens St., Quitman, Texas 75783
- Mailing addressPO Box 307, Quitman, TX 75783-0307
- Phone903-763-2201
- Fax903-763-5464
- Chief DeputyChris Turner
- Detention budget requested vs. approved, by year
- Jail staffing levels and vacancy rate
- Lawsuits and settlements involving the jail
Source: Wood County - Sheriff · checked 2026-08-22
The Judges
The county site lists no County Court at Law. Wood County's own Justices of the Peace page states that JPs 'perform magistrate duties, such as issuing warrants, setting bail, and conducting initial hearings for criminal cases' - one of the few counties in this group to say so on its own site.
County Judge
- Judge Kevin White
402nd Judicial District Court
- Honorable J. Brad McCampbell
Justices of the Peace
- Judge Tony Gilbreath - Precinct 1
- Judge Janae Holland - Precinct 2
- Judge Jerry Parker - Precinct 3
- Judge Jody Hettich - Precinct 4
- The county's bond schedule
- Share of the jail population held pretrial
- Median time from booking to first appearance
Source: the state judiciary · checked 2026-08-22
The County Commissioners
They pay for the jail. The sheriff runs it.
- What they controlThe detention budget, the building itself, and the agreements that let other agencies rent its beds.
- What they don'tDay-to-day operations. The sheriff is separately elected and answers to voters, not to the board.
- The boardBoard of County Commissioners →
- Where the jail money is decidedAgendas and minutes →
Notes on the record
- Wood County publishes the fullest jail page in this group: construction year, opening bed count, both expansions, current capacity, staffing, a live jail search, bonding instructions with the state bond fee, visitation rules and named vendors.
- No rates are published for phone calls, video visits or commissary; the ICSolutions brochure PDF the county posts is a scanned image with no extractable rate text.
- No death-in-custody report, PREA audit result, independent inspection result or contract to hold other agencies' prisoners is published.
- The FY2027 Proposed Budget Book is linked directly from the county home page.
- No county-specific Texas Commission on Jail Standards inspection report URL could be located.
- Four commissioners plus the County Judge, who presides. Precinct 1 Justin Bowring, Precinct 2 Jerry Gaskill, Precinct 3 Mike Simmons, Precinct 4 Russell Acker. Meetings begin at 9:00 AM; the court publishes Rules of Procedure, Conduct and Decorum and a public participation form.
- County seat: Texas State Library and Archives Commission — Counties and County Seats
The record
1 people have died in the Wood County jail since 2024.
Deaths: Texas Justice Initiative, the cleaned copy of the Texas Attorney General’s custodial death reports — the state’s own public index carries no cause of death and has not been refreshed since August 2025. Population: Texas Commission on Jail Standards monthly report. Counted, not estimated.
These three offices decide who sits in a cell in Wood County and what it costs the people who live here. Nationally, almost 77% of the people who died in local jails in 2019 had not been convicted of anything, and suicide was the leading single cause of those deaths (Bureau of Justice Statistics, Mortality in Local Jails, 2000–2019).
How much is your sheriff — and your judge — costing you?
Your VOTE is POWERFUL.
The sheriff who runs this jail is elected. So are the commissioners who pay for it.
Names verified 2026-08-22 · dollars and outcomes still being gathered